When liver cirrhosis progresses and an artery aneurysm is formed by blood in the portal vein flowing into the esophageal vein or the like, which increase the risk of esophageal varix rupture or the like. Therefore, it is necessary to visualize the portal system.
In order to visualize blood with an MRI apparatus, there is a method using an IR pulse. For example, entire magnetization is inverted using a first IR pulse that does not perform slice selection, and then a second slice selective IR pulse that performs slice selection is applied so that the regional blood flowing into an imaging surface is recovered from the magnetization. Then, imaging is performed after timings (TI) where the magnetization of the background tissue in the imaging surface becomes Null (for example, refer to Non-patent Literature 1).
Hence, the background tissue is suppressed, and additionally, and the blood flowed into the imaging surface between TIs can be visualized at a high signal.
Also, there is a method for applying a slice selective IR pulse to an imaging surface and imaging after a timing (TI) at which the magnetization of the background tissue becomes Null using the same IR pulse (for example, refer to Non-patent Literature 2).
Hence, the background tissue is suppressed, and additionally, blood flowed into an imaging surface between TIs is visualized at a high signal.
Also, the TOF imaging (Selective TOF MRA) in which a 2D RF pulse is applied as a pre-saturation pulse (Beam Sat pulse) to check a dominant region of a certain blood vessel is also known as the other blood vessel visualization method (for example, refer to Non-patent Literature 3).